Labour Market

Question 1

Labour surplus results in

Answer 1

greater competition for jobs, downward pressure on wages and a lower likelihood of employees rocking the boat.

Question 2

Structural unemployment is

Answer 2

where there is a fundamental mismatch between the supply and demand for labour, e.g. where the demand for a particular skill is low, the greater is the risk of being out of work if you have these skills

Question 3

Cyclical unemployment is

Answer 3

a reflection of business or economic cycles, e.g. during a recession, the demand for labour generally falls and unemployment increases

Question 4

Frictional unemployment is

Answer 4

is a temporary mismatch between the demand and the supply of labour that is always present in an economy..

Question 5

Changing demographics of the labour market reminds me of

Answer 5

Japan which has a long term trend of falling birth rates and lengthening life expectancy which results in an older working population.

Question 6

Population increase in median age

Answer 6

Germany, UK and many have a shrinking population as well as many other industrialised nations resulting in an ageing workforce.

Question 7

Female participation in work

Answer 7

a greater number of working women means …..

Question 8

Knowledge-intensive economy

Answer 8

there is an increase in knowledge-based workforces like doctors, lawyers, engineers and these upskilled workers who are continuously developing their knowledge.

there is an argument that these are not the majority of the jobs and these sceptics argue that most jobs are low skilled.

Question 9

Emotional labour (EI)

Answer 9

Grugukis et al. (2004) it is argued that it is not the thinking or the technical skills that are of increasing importance in the contemporary labour market, but person-to-person skills.

Skills of awareness of emotions of other people, self-awareness, empathy and influence.

Question 10

Rigid bureaucratic organisations vs “post-bureaucratic” organisations

Answer 10

Rigid bureaucratic organisations are characterised by vertical hierarchies, centralisation of control and task specialisation and are not responsive enough to cater for 21st-century capitalism.

They are replaced by leaner, flatter, more networked organisations.

The disadvantage is that there undermining of the linkage between training and career development, which is a key element for the development of the internal labour market and employee commitment.

Question 11

Flexibility in the labour market is defined as

Answer 11

the employer’s ability to:

1. recruit and dispose of labour as required.
2. alter labour costs in line with market needs
3. allocate labour efficiently within the firm
4. fix working hours to suit the business requirements